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Still on lettuce, I should mention that we do get what I, and probably you, think of as 'regular' lettuce. Sadly, only one type.

Romaine or Cos lettuce. Lactuca sativa L. var. longifolia. I do like the Chinese name. Just as 'whisky', derived from the Gaelic 'uisgebeatha' literally meaning ‘water of life’, the Chinese name for this lettuce is 生菜 (Mand: shēng cài; Cant: saang1 coi3), meaning ''vegetable of life' (literally 'life vegetable'.

I'm not sure how long you could live on just whisky and lettuce, though.

Like most of the preceding veg, this is usually served wilted with garlic and oyster sauce, but rarely raw. It is also used in noodle or wonton soups.

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Although their origin is in the Americas, the sweet potato was introduced to China in the late 16th century and rapidly became popular. It didn't take the Chinese long to figure out that the shoots are even better than the root. In fact, I don't really like the potatoes, but the shoots are great.

We only get the red skinned variety, so the Chinese name is 红薯苗/紅薯苗 Mand: hóng shǔ miáo; Cant: hung4 syu4 miu4), meaning 'red potato shoot'.

Again, usually stir fried with garlic and maybe chilli or used in hot pots.

I'll say more about the potatoes when I get to root vegetables, probably around 2053.

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Tired at looking at all of this greenery? Here are a couple of only semi-green greens.

First up is amaranth. There are 70 different species, but the ones we get most often are Amaranthus dubius.

Quite distinctively red and green, this is a plant which grows worldwide and which is usually regarded as a weed, but in China is a well-liked foodstuff. And why not?

In Chinese it is usually 苋菜/莧菜 (Mand: xiàn cài; Cant: jin6 coi3), but is known in the local dialect as 汉菜/漢菜 (Mand: hàn cài; Cant: hon3 coi3) , which kind of means ‘Chinese vegetable’. In English and English renditions of Cantonese it is red spinach, Chinese spinach,, spleen amaranth, hon-toi-moi, yin choy, or hsien tsai.

These leaves can leech red juices which colour everything they meet. For that reason it tends to be less frequently used in soups etc, but is simply stir fried. The taste is reminiscent of spinach (hence one of its English names). It is also packed with minerals and vitamins and general good things.

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Purple Perilla, 紫苏/紫蘇 (Mand: zǐ sū; Cant: zi2 sou1*) is a plant in the mint family used both as a vegetable and occasionally as a herb. It is a popular choice throughout South-east Asia and Japan as well as here in China.

Perilla comes in green varieties, known in Japan as shiso (シソ ), but the popular choice round here is the ‘purple’ variety. In fact it’s not entirely purple.

As you can see from the picture below which is of one leaf, one side is green and the other purple. This trait and the leaves’ sawtooth edges help to distinguish it from other purple vegetable which are superficially similar. Amaranth leaves, for example are either entirely green or entirely purple and lack the serrated edge.

Perilla is generally simply stir-fried as a leaf vegetable with garlic and/or ginger and served as a dish to accompany others. However it is sometimes used as a herb, such as in this recipe from Fuchsia Dunlop.

It is important to know that cooking the plant causes the red/purple colouring to leech out. In many people’s eyes this makes the vegetable undesirable if mixed with other ingredients.

Of course, perilla is also used in TCM (traditional Chinese medicine). What isn’t? They reckon it boosts the immune system and alleviates the common cold. Probably does a better job in the latter case than the useless injections everyone insists on having. Antibiotics are ineffective against viruses, but they won’t believe me. They also think colds are caused by cold. Nonsense. They forget that every time they get a summer cold. But, I digress.

It is stir fried with garlic, chopped and mixed with pork for jiaozi and wonton fillings etc, used in hot pots and soups. A favourite soup round these parts is clam and leaf mustard soup - 车螺芥菜汤 (Mand: chē luó jiè cài tāng). So popular, in fact, that many supermarkets pre-pack their clams with the vegetable.

Leaf mustard, as the name, suggests has a strong, but not unpleasant flavour. Much of this pungency is lost with excessive cooking.

The tuber and stems of this mustard plant are also, often pickled. The best-known example is probably 榨菜 (Mand:zhà cài; Cant: zaa3 zoi3) from Sichuan. This is the salt tuber which is then steeped in chilli paste and allowed to ferment. Similar to kimchi, but spicier. It is used in several noodle dishes such as dan-dan noodles, and also as a condiment with rice.

Zhacai

Locally, we have this pickled vegetable made by the Zhuang ethnic minority** whiuch also used the mustard plant.

* 大菜 (Mand: dà cài; Cant: daai6 coi3) is also the name for 'agar', the seaweed derived thickener.

** Minority in China; majority in Guangxi. They are the largest ethnic minority in China and most live here. Many of my friends here as Zhuang.

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Next is what I'm sure is the most popular. In every restaurant you hear people asking the wait staff "有什么青菜 (yǒu shén me qīng cài)？ What greens do you have?" The answer always includes, or may even be limited to "空心菜 (Mand: kōng xīn cài; Cant: hung1 sam1 coi3)."

This one also probably has the most alternative names. In English , water spinach, river spinach, morning glory, water morning glory, water convolvulus, Chinese spinach, Chinese Watercress, Chinese convolvulus, swamp cabbage, ong choy or kangkong.

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This is another one which I never associated with Chinese cuisine until I came here. It seems the Chinese agree with me. The most common name is 西洋菜 (Mand: xī yáng cài; Cant: sai1 joeng4 coi3), which simply means "Western vegetable'.

What we are talking about is watercress. Despite the Latin name, this has no relationship to the flowers commonly referred to as nasturtiums.

In Cantonese, 西洋菜 (Mand: xī yáng cài; Cant: sai1 joeng4 coi3) is also slang for 'foreign girl or young woman '. The things you learn on eGullet!

It is mainly fried with garlic, like so many greens, or used in soups, particularly those made from pork bones. I have never seen it in salads or seen a bowl of green watercress soup like I know (and make).

However it also comes dried to add to soups, and even with all the ingredients you need except water is a 'soup mix' pack. I've never gone there.

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Chinese foldwing is a Chinese herb/vegetable. Known locally as 羊肝菜 (Mand: yáng gān cài; Cant: joeng4 gon1 coi3), literally ‘sheep liver vegetable’, it is also known as 猪肝菜 (Mand: zhū gān cài; Cant: zyu1 gon1 coi3)or ‘pig’s liver vegetable’ among several other names. Despite this liverish nomenclature, it is used as a herb in traditional Chinese medicine to ‘strengthen’ the kidneys, as well as for colds and fevers and “men’s problems”, whatever they may be.

It is also used stir fried as a green vegetable or in soups.

7

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What we call onions is not always what the Chinese call onions. The base word for 'onion' in Chinese is 葱/蔥 (Mand: cōng; Cant: cung1), but used on its own, it refers not to what you may call an onion, but to a 'leek'.

What I call an onion is referred to as 洋葱/洋蔥 (Mand: yáng cōng; Cant: joeng4 cung1). They are common enough here, but 20 years ago they were very difficult to find. We nearly always only get red onions, but occasionally white onions turn up (as they did last week for a few days).

The next few entries will help us 'know our onions', Chinese style. There will be tears before bedtime.

The bulbs are also often pickled and served bat the start of banquets and wedding feasts to keep you going until all the guests arrive. I use the pickled onions a lot in a non-Chinese way - with cheese and in sandwiches. Good with chicken liver pâté, too. I have no respect.

These also come in two other forms. Those above are the leafy stems. Left to grow a little. they develop flower buds. At this stage, they are sold as 韭花 (Mand: jiǔ huā; Cant: gau2 faa1) where 花 means 'flower'.

Then we have 韭黄 (Mand: jiǔ huáng; Cant: gau2 wong4), which are the stems of the same plant, but grown under reduced light conditions so that they do not develop the green colour, but are yellow, the meaning of 黄. To my palate and nose, this technique also increases the garlic flavour and scent considerably. This is a good thing in my book.

All of these forms are used to finish off stir fries and also frequently added to various forms of dumplings, especially jiaozi. I've seen the green stems pickled like kimchi and been served the yellow ones just as a vegetable side dish.

Also, the green stems (first picture) are often grilled over charcoal at road side stalls and sold for next to nothing. You can see them in the image below, taken at a roadside grill place in Nanning, Guangxi.

Finally, they are used in pancakes in the same manner as scallion pancakes.

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Perhaps the food-related question I get asked most through my blog is “What's it like for vegetarians and vegans in China. The same question came up recently on another thread, so I put this together. Hope it's useful. It would also, be great to hear other people's experience and solutions.

For the sake of typing convenience I’m going to conflate 'vegetarians and vegan' into just 'vegetarian' except where strictly relevant.
First a declaration of non-interest. I am very carnivorous, but I have known vegetarians who have passed through China, some staying only a few weeks, others staying for years.

Being vegetarian in China is a complicated issue. In some ways, China is probably one of the best countries in which to be vegetarian. In other ways, it is one of the worst.

I spent a couple of years in Gorbachev-era Russia and saw the empty supermarkets and markets. I saw people line up for hours to buy a bit of bread.. So, when I first came to China, I kind of expected the same. Instead, the first market I visited astounded me. The place was piled high with food, including around 30 different types of tofu, countless varieties of steamed buns and flat breads and scores of different vegetables, both fresh and preserved, most of which I didn't recognise. And so cheap I could hardly convert into any western currency.
If you are able to self-cater then China is heaven for vegetarians. For short term visitors dependent on restaurants or street food, the story is very different.

Despite the perception of a Buddhist tradition (not that strong, actually), very few Chinese are vegetarian and many just do not understand the concept. Explaining in a restaurant that you don't eat meat is no guarantee that you won't be served meat.

Meat is seen in China as a status symbol. If you are rich, you eat more meat.And everyone knows all foreigners are rich, so of course they eat meat! Meat eating is very much on the rise as China gets more rich - even to the extent of worrying many economists, food scientists etc. who fear the demand is pushing up prices and is environmentally dangerous. But that's another issue. Obesity is also more and more of a problem.
Banquet meals as served in large hotels and banquet dedicated restaurants will typically have a lot more meat dishes than a smaller family restaurant. Also the amount of meat in any dish will be greater in the banquet style places.

Traditional Chinese cooking is/was very vegetable orientated. I still see my neighbours come home from the market with their catch of greenery every morning. However, whereas meat wasn't the central component of dinner, it was used almost as a condiment or seasoning. Your stir fried tofu dish may come with a scattering of ground pork on top, for example. This will not usually be mentioned on the menu.
Simple stir fried vegetables are often cooked in lard (pig fat) to 'improve' the flavour.

Another problem is that the Chinese word for meat (肉), when used on its own refers to pork. Other meats are specified, eg (beef) is 牛肉, literally cattle meat. What this means is that when you say you don't eat meat, they often think you mean you don't eat pork (something they do understand from the Chinese Muslim community), so they rush off to the kitchen and cook you up some stir fried chicken! I've actually heard a waitress saying to someone that chicken isn't meat. Also, few Chinese wait staff or cooks seem to know that ham is pig meat. I have also had a waitress argue ferociously with me that the unasked for ham in a dish of egg fried rice wasn't meat.

Also, Chinese restaurant dishes are often given have really flowery, poetic names which tell you nothing of the contents. Chinese speakers have to ask. One dish on my local restaurant menu reads “Maternal Grandmother's Fluttering Fragrance.” It is, of course, spicy pork ribs!
Away from the tourist places, where you probably don't want to be eating anyway, very few restaurants will have translations of any sort. Even the best places' translations will be indecipherable. I have been in restaurants where they have supplied an “English menu”, but if I didn't know Chinese would have been unable to order anything. It was gibberish.

To go back to Buddhism and Taoism, it is a mistake to assume that genuine followers of either (or more usually a mix of the two) are necessarily vegetarian. Many Chinese Buddhists are not. In fact, the Dalai Lama states in his autobiography that he is not vegetarian. It would be very difficult to survive in Tibet on a vegetarian diet.

There are vegetarian restaurants in many places (although the ones around where I am never seem to last more than six months). In the larger cities such as Beijing and Shanghai they are more easily findable.

Curiously, many of these restaurants make a point of emulating meat dishes. The menu reads like any meat using restaurant, but the “meat” is made from vegetable substitutes (often wheat gluten or konjac based).

It is possibly not well-known that China has some wonderful hams, up there with the best that Spain can offer. This lack of wide -knowledge, at least in the USA, is mainly down to regulations forbidding their importation. However, for travellers to China and those in places with less restrictive policies, here are some of the best.

This article from the WSJ is a good introduction to one of the best - Xuanwei Ham 宣威火腿 (xuān wēi huǒ tuǐ) from Yunnan province.
This Ingredient Makes Everything Better
I can usually obtain Xuanwei ham here around the Chinese New Year/Spring Festival, but I also have a good friend who lives in Yunnan who sends me regular supplies. The article compares it very favourably with jamon iberico, a sentiment with which I heartily agree.

I have just returned home to China from an almost two week trip to Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), Vietnam. To get there I first travelled by train to the provincial capital, Nanning. The local airport only does domestic flights, whereas there are direct flights from Nanning. The flight time required that I stay overnight at the Aviation Hotel in Nanning, from which there is a regular direct bus to the airport.

The trip to Nanning is about an hour and a half and passes through some nice karst scenery.

After booking into the hotel, I set off for my favourite Nanning eating destination. Zhongshan Night market is a well known spot and very popular with the locals. I had forgotten that it was a local holiday - the place is always busy, but that night it was exceptionally so.

It consists of one long street with hundreds of stalls and is basically a seafood market, although there are a few stalls selling alternatives.

Years ago, when I visited Tokyo, I ate in a small but fascinating restaurant called 'It's Vegetable' which is now, unfortunately, closed. The chef was from Taiwan, and he made Buddhist vegetarian and vegan dishes that resembled meat. During my visit, several monks wearing robes stopped in to eat dinner. The dishes were pretty amazing. I understood some of them, like using seitan to mimic chicken in stir fry dishes, others used tofu products like yuba, but, others were complex and obviously difficult. One very notable dish we enjoyed was a large 'fish' fillet designed to serve several people. It had a 'skin' made of carefully layered 'scales' cut from nori and attached to the surface. Inside, the white 'flesh' flaked and tasted much like a mild fish. Anyway, apparently Buddhist fake meat meals are very popular in Taiwan and many places, cheap through to fine dining serve them. Yes, if I worked on it for a while, I could probably refine one or two dishes on my own, but, I am wondering if there's a Modernist Cuisine type cookbook for skillfully making these mock meats from scratch? (I have heard that some items are commercially made and available frozen there, much like soy-based burgers are in the US.) I am willing to try almost any offering, even if it's entirely in Chinese. And, I know how to use remailers to purchase regional items from the various local retailers worldwide who do not ship to the US.

The three-hour journey north from Miao territory ended up taking four, as the driver missed a turning and we had to drive on to the next exit and go back. But our hosts waited for us at the expressway exit and lead us up a winding road to our destination - Buyang 10,000 mu tea plantation (布央万亩茶园 bù yāng wàn mǔ chá yuán) The 'mu' is a Chinese measurement of area equal to 0.07 of a hectare, but the 10,000 figure is just another Chinese way of saying "very large".

We were in Sanjiang Dong Autonomous County, where 57% of the inhabitants are Dong.

The Dong people (also known as the Kam) are noted for their tea, love of glutinous rice and their carpentry and architecture. And their hospitality. They tend to live at the foot of mountains, unlike the Miao who live in the mid-levels.

By the time we arrived, it was lunch time, but first we had to have a sip of the local tea. This lady did the preparation duty.

This was what we call black tea, but the Chinese more sensibly call 'red tea'. There is something special about drinking tea when you can see the bush it grew on just outside the window!

Then into lunch:

Chicken Soup

The ubiquitous Egg and Tomato

Dried fish with soy beans and chilli peppers. Delicious.

Stir fried lotus root

Daikon Radish

Rice Paddy Fish Deep Fried in Camellia Oil - wonderful with a smoky flavour, but they are not smoked.

Out of Focus Corn and mixed vegetable

Fried Beans

Steamed Pumpkin

Chicken

Beef with Bitter Melon

Glutinous (Sticky) Rice

Oranges

The juiciest pomelo ever. The area is known for the quality of its pomelos.

After lunch we headed out to explore the tea plantation.

Interspersed with the tea plants are these camellia trees, the seeds of which are used to make the Dong people's preferred cooking oil.

As we climbed the terraces we could hear singing and then came across this group of women. They are the tea pickers. It isn't tea picking time, but they came out in their traditional costumes to welcome us with their call and response music. They do often sing when picking. They were clearly enjoying themselves.

And here they are:

After our serenade we headed off again, this time to the east and the most memorable meal of the trip. Coming soon.